Rhubarb Bellini, She's Our Baby, Rhubarb Bellini We Don't Mean Maybe

Never let it be said, possums, that we don't listen to what you say. Ask and ye shall receive (well, within reason, of course).

You asked for the recipe for Stephanie Izard's rhubarb bellini, and we set out to get it. Miss XaXa wrote to Stephanie, asking how to make the rhubarb puree to be added to the champagne or prosecco, and this is the reply from Stephanie herself:

thanks for your interest in the rhubarb bellini. umm... i don't have the exact measurements but here's a quick guesstimate, 4 cups of chopped rhubarb 1 cup of sliced strawberries, 1/4 cup of white balsamic vinegar and half a cup of sugar and cook in a pot until tender then puree!

In addition, Stephanie confirmed that she will be participating in the Chicago Green City Market Chefs' Summer BBQ Festival on July 17 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Lincoln Park. Proceeds go to support the non-profit Green City Market, which, as you may remember, played host to one of this season's Quickfire Challenges. Other participating chefs who also appeared as guest judges this season are Rick Bayless, Paul Kahan and Koren Grieveson. So if you want to meet Stephanie, be sure to get your tickets.

The Last Day of Sweetness & Light: Padma Lakshmi Shows Us How to Be Easy & Exotic

Possums, it is here at last, and none a moment too soon, the last day of our week-long experiment with sweetness and light.

Naturally, we've saved our sweetest and lightest for last--ladies, gentlemen, and possums, we present Ms. Padma Lakshmi.

Now, take at look at the cover of Ms. Lakshmi's cookbook, Easy Exotic. Our old, pre-gayhab selves would have had a field day with the title, but our newly sweet and light selves say, "Brava! Padma is definitely exotic. And she's easy...on the eyes!" See how that works? Our old selves would have made much of the patently phallic "stem" surging from the bunch of bananas toward Padma. Our new selves simply note how the curve of the stem echoes the curve of her lovely shoulder. Our old selves would have wondered about the artfully dissembled scar. Our new selves say, "Scar? What scar? Padma is immaculate."

Now take a look at this other photograph. Our old selves would have wondered if she was wearing a brassiere and noted that it must have been very cold where the photograph was taken. Our new selves use the photograph as an opportunity to highlight Padma's recipe for curried butternut squash soup, a soup that eats like a meal, especially for the woman with an always keen appetite and who, to judge from the list of ingredients, is a fan of herbs (and spices). We include the recipe below, but you can watch Padma make the soup with Martha Stewart, a pairing of curry and cream if ever there was one:

Curried Butternut Squash Soup
Serves 6 to 8

1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup diced shallots
3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup minced fresh peeled ginger
4 bay leaves
1/2 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes
2 1/2 pounds Butternut Squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into chunks
1 1/3 teaspoons coarse salt
1 teaspoon curry powder
2 cups homemade or canned, store-bought low-sodium chicken stock, heated
One 1-inch chunk palm sugar (available in Asian grocery stores)
One 15-ounce can low-fat coconut milk
Freshly chopped chives, for garnish
Fresh curry leaves, for garnish

1. Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat. Add shallots and cook, stirring, about 2 minutes. Add the garlic, and continue to stir; add ginger. Continue cooking until shallots are soft and translucent, about 3 minutes. Add bay leaves and red pepper; continue cooking for 1 minute more. Stir in squash, salt, and curry powder; cook for 10 minutes.

2. Raise the heat to medium-high, and add chicken stock. Cover, and bring to a boil. Immediately lower the heat, and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring and mashing every 5 minutes. Add the palm sugar and cook for 5 minutes. Add the coconut milk and continue cooking for 10 minutes.

3. Remove bay leaves from soup. Using an immersion blender or in batches using a bar blender, purée until smooth.

4. Reheat soup, seasoning with salt. Garnish with chives, and serve immediately.

Treat yourselves to this soup, possums, and let it warm your insides in the same way that, we hope, our week of sweetness and light has warmed you.

Elia Aboumrad: “Niña Fresa” Brings Home the Bacon

Our Elia Aboumrad, the most “niña fresa”* of all, has finally provided Raggaydy Andy with the recipe for her much-lauded strawberry hors d'oeuvre from last week's holiday episode.
In the interest of service journalism, and due to a lack of new episodes and material, we shamelessly reproduce the recipe below, albeit in a more phonetically accurate version and with a few interpolations of our own in brackets:

ELIA'S STRAWBERRIES**

200g of heavy cream
80g of mascarpone cheese
30g of honey
10g of rosemary
Chopped [b]acon

You weep*** the hevee creem and then incorporate the rest of thee ingreedients with a weesk [wheech you are neverr souposed to leeck], chop the rosemaree and add eet at thee end.

Then, weeth a piping bag, squeeze over strawberries that you have previoslee cot in huff and spreenkle on top a leettol beet of chopped creespee bacon.****

*The literal translation of this in Spanish is “strawberry girl,” but it is Mexican slang for a girl from a wealthy background, with all that that implies.

**We're shocked at so prosaic, and so potentially naughty, a name; Strawberries à la mode du Pedregal de San Angel, or Fraises “Niña Fresa” seem more appropriate as potential names for the dish.

***Did anyone else catch the immortal exchange between Stewie Griffin and Brian on Sunday night about whether that white stuff that people occasionally put atop pie slices should be pronounced "Cool Wip" or "Cool Who-ip"?

****We thought the recipe originally called for pancetta (delightfully rendered in Elia's accent), and we know it's not quite the same thing as bacon, so what gives?